Exodus 23:8Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.

Proverbs 20:1Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by them is not wise.

Proverbs 23:20Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat.

Proverbs 23:29Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has needless wounds? Who has bloodshot eyes?

Proverbs 31:4It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to crave strong drink,

Isaiah 5:11Woe to those who rise early in the morning in pursuit of strong drink, who linger into the evening, to be inflamed by wine.

Isaiah 22:13But look, there is joy and gladness, butchering of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!"

Isaiah 24:9They no longer sing and drink wine; strong drink is bitter to those who consume it.

Isaiah 28:7These also stagger from wine and stumble from strong drink: Priests and prophets reel from strong drink and are befuddled by wine. They stumble because of strong drink, muddled in their visions and stumbling in their judgments.

Isaiah 56:12"Come, let me get the wine, let us imbibe the strong drink, and tomorrow will be like today, only far better!"

Habakkuk 2:15Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin until they are drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness!

Treasury of Scripture

Woe to them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:

mighty

Isaiah 5:11 Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!

Isaiah 28:1-3,7 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine! …

(22) Woe unto them that are mighty to drink. . . . strong drink.--The words in part reproduce the "woe" of Isaiah 5:11-12, but with the distinctive feature that there the revellers were simply of the careless self-indulgent type, while here they are identified with the unjust and corrupt rulers. They were heroes and valiant men only in and for their cups. To such men it seemed a light matter to acquit the guilty and condemn the guiltless. The prophet dwells on the familiar truth, Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur. The Targum, it may be noticed, has "the mammon of falsehood" (comp. Luke xvi, 9), for the "reward" of the Hebrew.

Verse 22. - Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine. The sixth woe seems at first sight a repetition of the second. But there is this difference, that the drinkers in the present verse do not succumb to their liquor, or remain at the banquet all day, but proceed to the business of their lives, attend courts and judge causes, but with brain obfuscated and moral vision bedimmed, so that they are easily induced to pervert justice on receipt of a bribe. The sixth woe may be considered to be pronounced rather upon their corruption than upon their drinking, and so to be really quite distinct from the second (comp. Proverbs 31:4, 5).